


Trying for a date

by TiffanyF



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiffanyF/pseuds/TiffanyF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yagyuu wants to switch with Niou, but Niou already has other plans for the day. Don't own, don't make money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying for a date

“No, Yagyuu, I can’t swap with you tomorrow,” Niou said. He shifted his phone to his other ear and grabbed his math book. The homework wouldn’t take him that long and he had good incentive to get it done early. He was more concerned about his literature homework. It wasn’t his best class, and was also the reason he always put it off until the very end. Niou didn’t have a choice but to get good grades in all his classes if he wanted to stay on the tennis team, but it didn’t mean he had to like all of them. “I’ve got plans after school and I need to be myself for them.”

“Niou-kun, you would have plenty of time to switch back before then,” Yagyuu said. “Tomorrow would merely be easier for me if I were you.”

“What did you do that you need me to fix for you?” Niou asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“And I’m sure you do. You only ask for me to switch with you when you do something stupid that you can’t get out of and risk your reputation over, so you make me look like the jerk,” Niou said. “Like the time that girl asked you out and you couldn’t say no because her family is friends with your father. I’m still not welcome at your house because of that switch. You just told me that you wanted me to take a test for you. You never once mentioned that you were going to use me to dump a girl before you even gave her a chance.”

“Niou-kun, that’s hardly fair. You know that I’m already seeing someone and couldn’t possibly cheat on them.”

“Someone your parents wouldn’t approve of, no doubt,” Niou sighed. “Sorry, Yagyuu, but your reputation is just going to have to take a hit. I have a tight schedule tomorrow and I won’t have time to switch back to myself between last class and my first meeting.”

Yagyuu was silent for a moment. “What are you doing, Niou-kun?” he finally asked.

“None of your business,” Niou replied. “I’ll see you at practice in the morning, Yagyuu. I’ve got homework to finish.”

“I wasn’t aware you did your own homework. I thought you blackmailed that one boy into doing it for you.”

“He just wanted people to believe that to get me in trouble,” Niou said. “Sanada found out what was going on, and the kid hasn’t been able to walk since. I’m not sure exactly what Sanada is doing to him, but I don’t miss the trouble of having that jerk around.”

Yagyuu sighed. “I can never tell when you’re lying, Niou-kun,” he said. 

“That’s the point,” Niou said. “Night, Yagyuu.”

He closed the phone before his partner could say anything else and tossed it across the room towards his bed. Niou really didn’t want to know what Yagyuu had gotten himself into this time around. It was getting old that Yagyuu would use him as a way out. Niou was mean to kids at times, he loved to play pranks, but he wouldn’t have done what Yagyuu did to that poor girl. The only thing she had done wrong was ask him to go to a movie. Niou didn’t really miss being able to go to Yagyuu’s house, there were too many rules in place for his taste, but the stain on his reputation hurt. With a small sigh he turned back to his homework and debated staying home sick the next day; if only it wouldn’t give Yagyuu the exact chance he was looking for.

**********

It was extremely rare for anyone to beat Yukimura to morning practice. He took pride in the fact that he was always the first one there. It also gave him the chance to stand and glare at each of his players as they came in, and get them out onto the courts that much faster. Sanada was normally the second one in, followed closely by Yanagi and Yagyuu. Niou wasn’t always last, but he didn’t like to get there too early unless he was planning to set up one of his pranks. Even then, he would be more likely to set it after everyone had left the night before and make sure that it wouldn’t go off until he tweaked it the next morning.

So Yukimura was extremely suspicious when he arrived and found Niou already in the clubhouse changing for practice. His blue eyes narrowed and he walked across the room. “Good morning, Masaharu,” he said softly, running his hand through the platinum hair. 

“Good morning, Yukimura,” Niou replied.

That was all Yukimura needed. Plus, the wig felt wrong under his hand. He grabbed and yanked. “Yagyuu, what are you doing?”

“I am Niou-kun today,” Yagyuu replied. He stood and reached for his wig.

“I thought Niou told you no,” Yukimura said with a soft smile. “Really, Yagyuu, one of these days you’ll learn your lessons. You cannot fool me with the switch, and you really need to learn to watch what you say.”

“Puri.”

Yukimura tossed the wig over his shoulder to the other boy. “I believe this is yours, Niou,” he said.

“Thanks, Yukimura,” Niou said. He stuck the wig in his backpack and closed it with a padlock. “Yagyuu, I told you no. But I thought that you might try something like this, so I had a talk with Yukimura too. He agreed to help me out.”

“I know you’ll make it worth my time,” Yukimura whispered as he passed Niou to go to his own locker. 

Niou grinned at the buchou. “And Yagyuu, everyone knows what color hair tie I’m wearing today and it’s a new one,” he said. “I made sure to tell all the regulars about it, so even if you do manage to get your wig out of my bag, they’ll know better than to think it’s me and they’ll grab the wig. You have to be you today and that’s all there is to it.”

“When did you get so mean, Niou-kun?”

“I’ve always been like this,” Niou said. “You just never noticed it before because I was being nice to you because we play doubles together and we can’t be fighting. But a little bird told me something interesting, and now I don’t care anymore.”

Sanada came in before Yagyuu had a chance to say anything else. Niou took the chance to change into his uniform and then went over to talk with Yukimura. “So, everything still in place for this afternoon?” he asked softly.

“Of course it is, providing someone doesn’t spoil everything,” Yukimura replied. “I’m looking forward to it, Masaharu.”

Niou smiled softly and cupped Yukimura’s cheek in his hand. “I am too,” he said.

**********

Niou made it a point to follow Yagyuu around as much as he could during the day. He was curious about why the other boy wanted to be him so badly that day. There were several options, but the main one Niou had been able to come up with was that Yagyuu needed to do something that would hurt one of their schoolmates and didn’t want that on his own head. So he wanted to dump it on Niou’s. Yukimura’s idea for the new hair tie had been a great idea, and Niou had enjoyed the look of frustration on Yagyuu’s face when he realized that Niou was wearing a color that they didn’t have in their collection for the switches. 

But no matter how hard he tried, Niou couldn’t find anything that would have warranted such insistence on the switch. He finally gave up and went to meet up with Yukimura after practice. They had been planning a date to the beach for close onto a month, trying to find a day when they could get their homework done ahead of time, Yukimura didn’t have a doctor’s appointment and they could stop tennis practice early without giving anyone a heart attack. Based on how hard Yukimura had been working them the past couple of days, the team was relieved to have a short practice that afternoon.

They were halfway to the beach when Niou realized something. “We’re being followed,” he said softly.

“Can you tell by whom?” Yukimura asked.

“I think it’s Yagyuu,” Niou replied. “I wonder what he wants.”

Yukimura grabbed Niou’s arm and pulled him to a stop, looking into a store window. Luckily it was a pet store, so it didn’t seem too unnatural. “Let’s just stand here for a couple of minutes and see what happens,” he said. “Besides, look at the puppies.”

Niou grinned. There were four puppies of some small breed in the window and they were fighting over a toy. “They remind me of Marui, Jackal, Akaya and Yanagi a couple of weeks ago,” he said as he put an arm around Yukimura’s waist. “When they lost a couple of tennis balls.”

Yukimura laughed. “Like there wasn’t a basket of them by the next court.”

“And Akaya claiming it was his lucky tennis ball,” Niou said. “I’ll say this, Seiichi, practice is never dull. Dangerous and insane, but never dull.”

“As long as we win, that’s all I care about,” Yukimura said. He rested his head against Niou’s. “He’s still behind us, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he is. I’ll keep track of him.”

“All right, let’s get going. I don’t want anything to ruin our day at the beach.”

The only other stop the pair made was to buy some food and drinks to take with them. Yukimura had brought a blanket from home for them to sit on and Niou had the perfect place in mind. He knew that they weren’t going to be doing anything improper on the beach, unless they went swimming, but the water was still too cold for that. “Thanks for agreeing to what I asked for, Seiichi,” Niou said once they were settled. He opened his bag and sighed when four rubber snakes popped out. “That was dangerous.”

“They’re just rubber...” Yukimura’s voice trailed off when one of the snakes moved.

Niou grabbed it behind the head and stood. “Yagyuu Hiroshi, get over here now,” he snapped. “Where did you get this snake?”

“At the park,” Yagyuu said, stepping out from behind the rocks. “Why?”

“You should have done your homework better then. This one is poisonous,” Niou snapped. He shifted his grip to the tail and swung hard, breaking the snake’s head against the rocks. “What would you have done if it bit one of us, Yagyuu?”

“Taken you to the hospital, of course.” Yagyuu pushed his glasses back into place. “How did you know that one wasn’t a fake, Niou-kun?”

“You can’t out-trick a petenshi,” Niou snapped. “I don’t care what you want, Yagyuu, it’s not going to happen so you can just go away. And if you don’t, you’re going to find out what a mistake you’ve made.”

Yagyuu actually took a step back. “Niou-kun.”

“I want to spend an afternoon with my boyfriend where we don’t have to deal with other people,” Niou said. “That means not you and not Yanagi.”

“Renji?” Yukimura asked, looking around.

“I’ll just go home then, shall I?” Yanagi asked, appearing from behind another rock. “Have a nice afternoon, Seiichi, Niou.”

Yukimura sighed. “Maybe we should just go to my house, Masaharu,” he said. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about random people showing up and spoiling things. I mean, how do we know the rest of the team isn’t here?”

“Because I would kill them all,” Niou said. He sighed. “But you’re probably right. Your house is better if we want to be alone.” He picked up the rubber snakes and stuffed them down Yagyuu’s shirt. “Be glad I picked out the dangerous one for you rather than thinking they were all rubber, Yagyuu.”

Yukimura bit back a laugh at the look on Yagyuu’s face and bent to pick up the blanket. “You did get off light, Yagyuu,” he said. “Things could have been much worse today, you know. Oh, you never did tell us why you were so keen to be Niou today.”

Rather than answering, Yagyuu turned and walked away. Niou sighed. “Somehow I don’t think he’s going to be talking to me for a while. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not playing doubles at Nationals, huh?”

“This will be a better surprise,” Yukimura said. He took Niou’s hand. “Come on, we can get some more food at my place and watch TV. It’s not a perfect date, but at least we’ll get to spend some time together.”

“Yeah,” Niou said. He leaned over and kissed Yukimura softly. “But that’s pretty close onto perfect, Seiichi.”

“Sweet-talker,” Yukimura said fondly.


End file.
